Mirrors of Celestial Grace: Patristic Theology in Spenser's Allegory.

There has been something of a backlash against New Historicist readings of Renaissance literature in terms of its cultural, social, and political existence, and an awareness that perhaps the religious significance of literary texts has been undervalued. Both of these works, published by one of the more theologically oriented university presses, attempt to correct that blindspot in their readings of the works of Edmund Spenser, a poet who has often been the subject of considerable theological controversy, both before and after the rise of new critical theory.

Mirrors of Celestial Grace is by far the most successful of the two, although it is by no means always persuasive in its arguments. Harold Weatherby's contention is that The Faerie Queene has usually been read exclusively in terms of its author's supposed protestantism, whereas, in fact, the poem is both eclectic and learned, open not just to rival catholic interpretations, but, more importantly, 'sustained patristic influences' which Spenser was probably exposed …